Spring, however, is the season of benevolent surprises.

Spring, however, is the season of benevolent surprises.  The air is soft, the soil is warm, colors bloom in the sunlight, and the world is again like a garden, though when night falls winter comes halfway back.  The alternation of rich, warm days and cold nights sparkling with stars is like a declaration that everything is possible but nothing is promised, that what is given will be reclaimed.

Mark Helprin, New York Times bestselling author

Passage from his new novel, Paris in the Present Tense